15 Woodmere Road

A short story, fiction based on real things, ghost story.

When I opened my door I would run from my porch to the end of the street so no one would see what house I came out of. The neighbors of course knew, but they didn’t matter to me. They mostly kept to themselves and they already hated their own families so much that they didn't have much room for me. They stayed away from my house and I theirs’. I ran across the street and close to the curb and cattails would hit my face. I’d look up and see the squirrels’ nest in the tallest tree and a cardinal sitting nearby. I’d see sticks and remember the time my sister told me that sticks and branches were the same thing, as if that wasn’t obvious. I’d probably see a cat or two. A family of wild turkeys. And then I would get to the end of Woodmere Road and walk to the red brick building that was my school. A desolate and lonely place for me but not as terrible as my house.

     15 Woodmere Road was not lonely. In fact, it was so full of voices and movement that it was exhausting. Constantly, they would be yelling my name, slamming doors, stomping so hard that the ceiling would crack. They were always talking, but most of the time too faintly for me to hear what they said. They were always moving, but too quickly for me to get a good look at them. I’d only really see them out of the corner of my eye. I saw one running down the stairs. She was wearing a red and white checkered dress. They laugh a lot. I wonder what they’re laughing about. Because what do they have to laugh about? I think they mimic me, steal my emotions. I see them look at me in the mirror sometimes, and when I look up they’re gone. No, 15 Woodmere Road isn’t lonely. It's hysterical. It’s a pretty red on the outside, with white trimmings and pink gardenias. But it’s dark, cluttered, and hysterical on the inside. And I mean cluttered. So many antiques worth absolutely nothing sitting on every bookcase, the coffee table, my dresser, and the bathroom cabinet. There’s copper boxes with mauve stones encased in their designs. There’s abstract paintings that remind one of bile. There’s toys from the 50s, with malevolent, smiling faces. The only nice room in the house is the one in the back. It’s painted pale green and has big windows where the sunlight comes in. the only thing in the room is a small table with probably the first TV sitting on it. Tiny and fat, with a rounded square for a screen, and antennas. Upstairs was where we entered when walking through the front door, downstairs was mostly underground. There was a part cut out of the hill the house sat on, where the garage would open to the driveway. We never put cars in the garage, though. It would flood when it rained and there was a door with a window where you could see a glowing pair of eyes if you squinted. The downstairs was yellow, and it had two rooms. An office, which was gray. And a studio, which was a 5’ by 5’ room that was light blue Outside the rooms sat our ancient dryer and washingmachine. The ceiling was falling apart from all the stomping. It’s not that I’m afraid of 15 Woodmere Road, it’s just that it’s overwhelming. I haven’t lived in complete silence for years. 

     One day, I ran from my door across the street to the end of the road and walked to the brick building that was my school like any other day. And for some odd reason, that day I wasn’t isolated. I mean, I isolated myself, like I always did. But this kid was insistent on me not being alone. He asked me many things.

“Why are you so quiet, Jamie?”

“I don’t know.” I did, but I couldn’t tell him.

“What do you do for fun?”

“Run, I guess.” I did run a lot, but not exactly for fun.

“Do you hate me?”

“No. I don’t even know you.” My first true answer.

“Can we be friends?”

“Sure.” This made me happy but I didn’t smile.

“Good! Where do you live?”

“Why?” I said this too quickly.

“So we play after school...”

“Oh. My parents don’t like it when people come over. Can we go to your house?” My excuse was partly true.

“Okay! I live at 1 Rosalind Way. We can walk there after school.”

“Okay.” 

1 Rosalind Way. What a beautiful name. So much better than 15 Woodmere Road. 1 Rosalind Way was a place with white houses, daisies and sunflowers, and kind people. No hateful families or loud, muffled voices. No banging on ceilings or flooded garages. No staring or hysteria. A serene, green and yellow street. With calm, quiet voices. And Milo, the nicest kid I had ever met. 

    Milo’s house was sky blue, not white, but it was still perfect. His mother was blonde and pretty, and she gave us orange juice. We went outside where the leaves on the trees were green, not orange. And there were no evergreens. Milo had a soccer ball and we played for a while. 

“I should go, my parents will be wanting me home for dinner” I said. 

“Okay! I’ll walk you. My dad says that it’s polite to walk girls home.”

“No! That’s okay! I lived pretty close anyway. Thanks for everything” I yelled as I started to run to the end of Rosalind Way. 

   When I got home there was a glass of grape juice waiting for me. It was in a wine glass because that was the only kind of cup we had.

“You’re home so late, Jamie” a thick, feminine voice said behind me.

“Sorry” I ran quickly to my room, leaving the grape juice behind. 

I swung open my closet door and went inside. I heard the loud, muffled voices all around me as I leaned against the wall and slid down. I tried covering my ears with my arms but it didn’t do much. “Shut up, shut up, shut up” I whispered. When that did nothing I shouted. “SHUT UP!”

For a split second everything was quiet. Then all of a sudden there was the woman with the red and white checkered dress sitting on the closet floor in front of me. She had curled, dark brown hair with a side part, and brown doe eyes that were kind despite being transparent.

“What’s wrong?” She asked me softly.

“You all never stop talking! And you slam my door and bang on the ceiling and yell my name! And you’re always watching me! Why can’t you just leave me alone?” 

“I’m sorry”, her voice was still soft, “we’re angry, and very sad. We try to feel things through you because we have nothing of our own to feel.”

I looked at her for a minute. “I’m sad too, you know. But I wasn’t today. I went to Milo's house. And he was nice and so was his mother. And it was quiet there.”

She looked at me with pity in her eyes.

“You fear death, don’t you?” She asked.

“How can I? I’m always around it”, I said annoyed.

“You can fear something that you’re used to” she paused, “ I want to tell you a story that I heard a long time ago. In the olden days, there was a wheat farmer. And usually he would grow enough wheat to last him throughout the winter and he would store it in his shed. But one winter was particularly brutal and it blew down the shed and all the wheat was frost-bitten and ruined. The farmer wasn’t sure what to do, for he and his family had no other source of food. He decided to try hunting, but he had no weapon other than his wheat cutter, also known as a scythe. So he took his scythe up the mountain, hoping to find rabbits or weasels or really any animal to hunt and kill so that his family wouldn’t starve. He was out in the woods for a long time and he didn’t find anything. It was getting dark and snow was falling, but he didn’t want to go home to his family empty-handed. So he continued deeper into the woods and farther up the mountain. And suddenly through the woods he saw a light. And then he saw smoke coming from a chimney. There was a small cabin in the middle of the woods. The wheat farmer ran towards it, hoping that the owner of the cabin was kind and would give him some food to bring to his family. He knocked on the door and an elderly woman answered. She was very small and she seemed harmless. She smiled at the farmer and said “please come in, young man”. He complied. She said “you must sit and have some tea and soup”

The farmer said “thank you very much ma’am, but I must be getting home to my family. Do you have a pot I could bring the soup in? I promise I’ll bring it back.”

“No, no. No pots, please sit”, said the old woman. The farmer was young and wasn’t very bold, so he decided to do as she said. He thought that if he bided his time he probably would get some food and go home relatively soon. 

“Here you are”, said the old lady, placing a bowl of soup in front of him. He looked closer at it. It was not soup at all but water with chunks of ice in it. He tasted and sure enough it tasted just like water and ice. He was about to say something when he heard a bleat in the corner. He looked and saw a goat. He wondered why this old woman was serving ice water as soup when she had a perfectly healthy looking goat in her house.

He said “ma’am, don’t mind me asking, but why are you eating ice water when you could slaughter this goat?” 

The old woman, whose back was turned to him, whipped her head around with a scowl. “That goat is my husband! A terrible witch turned him into a goat just for her own entertainment!” 

“My deep apologies, ma’am”, said the farmer although he didn’t believe a word of it. Witches weren’t real. 

“Eat your soup”, said the woman, and she turned back around to tend to the fire. The farmer thought for a moment. His family would starve if he didn’t bring them food soon. His scythe was leaning against the wall. Again, the goat bleated in the corner. He made up his mind and quickly grabbed his scythe to slit the goat’s throat. The goat screamed and its blood sprayed all over the farmer, soaking his hands in red. The farmer looked at his hands but when he looked back at the goat he saw an old man, with his throat slit. The old woman ran over to them and yelled “No! My love!”, but the man had already died. The farmer was in shock and didn’t know what to do. The old woman turned to him and he felt true fear from the look in her eyes. 

“You! You killed my husband! For that I will curse you for eternity!” 

The farmer looked in horror as the blood on his hands soaked into his skin and stained. 

“You will be forced to wander these woods, collecting souls, for the rest of time!” The old witch yelled. With that she dragged the farmer out of her house quite easily, for she was very strong. She threw him out the door and onto the ground. She stood on the threshold, glaring down at him.

The farmer took one last glance at the dead old man in the corner, and the angry witch above him before she slammed the door of the cabin shut. The farmer blinked and the cabin was gone, disappearing into thin air, with only trees and snow in front of him. He got up and looked at his hands, still stained with blood. He tried to scrub it off in the snow but it would not come out. He decided that maybe he could hide his hands around his family and go home, but when he tried he could not find his way out of the woods. Nothing looked familiar and there seemed to be no end to the trees. He looked up and could not see the sky. He gave up, deciding that he was too much of an abomination to go home to his family, after what he had done. So he pulled up his hood only to hide his face, for he found that he was no longer cold despite the persisting wind and snow. He held up his scythe to protect himself. All he could do was what the witch had said. Anytime he came across any unfortunate soul, he collected them into a small jar that he had found in his pocket. He’s still there today. Those who have seen him say that he wears a black cloak, with an empty void where his face should be. His hands are pale and blood stained and he wields a scythe with which to collect your soul. He is condemned to wander the woods for eternity, repeating the sin he had done unto the witch’s husband.”

“That was so stupid”, I said. 

“Yes,” she nodded, “it was.”

“Then why’d you tell it?”

“There was something interesting about the farmer. I wonder, did you notice it?” She leaned forward to look me in the eyes.

“No. I mean, it sounds like the farmer is supposed to be the villain of the story, but I think he was right.” Just then another woman appeared beside her, this one looked older. Her hair was graying and she wore glasses. Her dress was brown and high necked.

“Exactly!”, the new ghost said excitedly. On the other side of the red checkered woman a man wearing a baseball hat piped up. “That’s the point”, he said, nodding encouragingly. 

“Why do you think that is?” said the first woman. I thought for a minute. Someone laughed next to me. I turned and saw a boy of about six with bright blue eyes. The adults glared at him and he whispered “she looks funny when thinking”. 

Finally I answered “you don’t know who the villain of the story is because you can sympathize with both the witch and the farmer”. Many voices around me laughed and cheered quietly. I looked up to find the owners of the voices, all around me. The voices who had haunted me throughout my childhood were suddenly all around, visible. Except this time they weren’t muffled and loud, they were clear and light. Kind. 

“So that’s it?” I asked, “the moral of the story is that there’s two sides to everything?”

“That’s part of it,” said red-checked dress.

“What’s the rest?”

“Well, the farmer has a family, does he not? But we never actually meet a member of the family, they’re only mentioned. Why do you think?”

“Because you told it that way?” 

She laughed. “Yes, but try harder”.

“It makes him seem less selfish. He didn’t kill the witch’s goat-husband just for himself, he did it for his whole family.”

“Right. But there’s another reason, can you think of it?”

“I don’t know. He’s lonely once he’s lost in the woods, but he probably wasn’t before. I guess that there was a sort of protection in the solidarity he had with his family. Maybe he should’ve gone into the forest alone?”

The ghosts smiled. 

“I’ve thought about this story a lot, you know”, said red-checkered, “I’ve wondered if the farmer’s family was his wife and children or his parents and siblings. Or both. It does say that he was young, doesn’t it? And I’ve wondered if the story would seem different if the witch’s husband had been a sheep instead of a goat. After all, the goat is the symbol of the devil, a fitting husband for a witch. But there is a certain sympathy we are supposed to feel for the witch, so what if her husband was a sheep, like the lamb of God? The farmer feared death so much that he killed, and ended in a position worse than death. But in the end, we don’t really know what the story is meant to tell us.”

“I think”, I started before pausing for a moment to think, “I think that on the surface, the moral of the story is that you shouldn’t take what isn’t yours, no matter what. But if you look deeper I guess it’s about differing views. But also how there is safety in solidarity, and how if you fear something too much it will lead you to do terrible things. In the end, the moral is always to do the right thing. But it's not always clear what is the right thing.” I looked at her. Her face appeared emotionless to me, I could not tell what she was thinking for the life of me.

“Yes”, she finally said, very quietly. “Yes, I think you’re right. But I need you to take what you learned somewhere. We can’t, we’ve had our chances. So, what are you going to do?”

“I’m… I’m going to talk to Milo” I said with resolve.

She smiled at me one last time.

When I woke up I was in my bed. That day at school I asked Milo to go for a walk. I felt like I was floating. When I came home I was happy so I didn’t notice anything amiss for a minute. But something strange was happening. I passed a sunflower-patterned couch in the middle of the street. I heard disembodied, classical music. The blue-eyed boy sat on my front porch. I could barely see him in the daylight.

“What’s happening?” I asked him.

“It’s leaking!” he giggled. 

Leaking. 15 Woodmere Road was leaking out the doors and windows and into the rest of Woodmere Road. Yellow dust floated around in the air. This was bad, very bad. I had no idea what to do. I ran into the house and saw the older woman with glasses and graying hair drinking a glass of wine. Not grape juice. “Jamie, you’re home late again,” she said. 

“Where’s red-checkered?” I asked frantically.

“Who?” She looked at me.

“The woman in the red-checkered dress?”

“Oh, you mean Katherine. She’s in the garage”.

“The garage?! Why?!” I ran down the stairs and to the garage door to find Katherine standing, staring out the door’s window. 

“What are you doing?” I asked carefully. 

“Watching”, she said, without looking at me.

“Is the creature in there? Is everything okay?” 

“No. You must’ve seen what’s happening outside. You know that everything isn’t okay. I’m trying to decide what to do.”

“What about the creature? Did it leak out too?” I asked this frantically.

“No, it didn’t. It’s in there. And I think I will let it out.”

“Why?!” 

“Remember the young wheat farmer? Didn’t he do what he thought would save his family? What he had to do?”

“How will the creature save us? It’s just a creature isn’t it?”

She laughed. “What does the creature do? Hmm? It stands in the shallow water. Its eyes glow. And when you look through the window to watch it, it watches you back. But you’ve never seen it. Not really. You can’t describe what it looks like or how it behaves. But it’s seen you. It knows all about you. You hadn’t thought about any of that, had you?”

“I… it’s not just a creature? What will it do?”

“I don’t know. But it will definitely do something. It will make the situation different. If I open the door something will change. That is certain.”

“Wasn’t the moral of the story to always do what is right? But sometimes it’s hard to figure out what that is? Katherine, I think it’s a safe bet that letting the creature out isn’t the right thing.”

“I used to smoke cigarettes. They turned my insides to ash and made my eyes red but I still smoked them. Do you think that was the right thing? Are the cigarettes evil? Is the creature evil? Or is the smoker the one who does wrong? Not the cigarette?”

“But Katherine! The cigarettes turned only your insides to ash and that was your choice! But the creature could turn all of Woodmere Road to ash! None of the neighbors want that!”

“I don’t care about them! This is for us! For 15 Woodmere Road! And it only damns me!” With that she flung the door to the garage open. The noise that erupted was deafening and black liquid oozed out. The creature made a horrible guttural sound. Katherine grinned. I knew what I had to do. In the high cabinet above the washing machine there were matches and lighter fluid. I climbed on top of the washing machine and opened it. Katherine started screaming when she saw what I was doing.

“Jamie stop!!” 

I opened the lighter fluid can and poured it onto the black ooze. And then I lit a match and dropped it. It lit immediately, more effectively than I had expected. Perhaps the ooze was flammable as well. Katherine screamed louder now. In pain? No, she couldn’t feel pain. It was rage. Despite her incorporeality she burned from the feet up. I- I had no idea what to think. I ran. Up the screeching stairs and outside of 15 Woodmere Road. 

The flames reached the first floor soon after. And I watch as my bleeding house and all the self-pitying haints and demons that resided and tortured in it burned. I had half hoped that I would burn with it. But I knew I wouldn’t. I wasn’t really a part of it, Katherine had shown me that. For better or for worse. The whole house seemed to scream. By now my neighbors had come out to watch. I had never seen so much emotion on their faces. They were quiet for only a little while until they started asking questions to each other and some to me. I ignored all of it. And I watched as fire consumed 15 Woodmere Road and the roof fell in.